Key Findings from @Work State of Mind Project from gyro and Forbes Insights

From the introduction of key findings to “The @ Work State of Mind Project”—a joint effort of gyro, a btob agency and Forbes Insights. Surveying 543 business decision-makers, we found that boundaries of time and space that once defined the workplace no longer exist. To download the complete report go to www.gyro.com/atwork

The @Work State of Mind has taken hold. The barriers between personal and work time have crumbled. Executives have to be prepared to make decisions anywhere and at any time. Just 3% of the survey respondents said that they didn’t send or receive emails while on vacation. Only 2% said that they never worked weekends or nights. More than half the respondents (52%) said they receive information related to business decisions round-the-clock, including weekends.

The @Work State of Mind reflects a new blending of work and personal time. Downtime no longer means total disengagement from work for an extended period. Those most at ease with the @Work State of Mind are those who feel most in control. They are good at separating work from personal time: Only 15% of them said they are rarely or never able to do so, versus 24% of those who feel a lack of control. Since both groups spend similar amounts of time working on weekends, evenings, etc., this seems to be a matter of successful mental compartmentalization. “Just as the boundaries of the physical world and digital worlds are blurring with the rapidly increasing penetration of smartphones, tablets, Facebook and location-based apps like Shopkick and Foursquare, so are the boundaries blurring between work and home,” says Nathan Estruth, VP, Procter & Gamble FutureWorks NDB. “Increasingly, work is no longer constrained by space or even by time of day, but rather by an individual’s personal preferences and state of mind at any given moment.”